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Brand New Island Gift Wrap

We are lucky to have some truly incredible designers in The Book Of Everyone office. These days, they’ve been busily working on designs for brand spanking new gift wrap.

Here’s a sneak peek at an original from one of our favourite in-house geniuses, Martino Pannofino – in his own words.

How would you describe the style of the gift wrap design?

MARTINO: Celebratory! Charming! Curious!

What were you hoping to create when you started working on the gift wrap project?

M: I wanted to create a world populated by the characters and images that illustrate The Book Of Everyone, to make something that represents the icons of the books.

One of the things I love about the design of the books is that they really feel to me like all of these little guys live there.

So, I wanted to go through the book and see which characters and images caught my attention, and then present them in a new environment with a fresh graphic style.

How much does the experience of the people giving and receiving the gift inform your design choices?

M: Putting the customer at the centre of everything is an important part of thinking about the design.

That’s why there is a heart in the middle of the design. That heart is the only white space, meant to give people a clear place to add in the name of the person they have created the book for. It puts the receiver of the gift at the centre of everything else in the design.

The whole world of the book spreads out onto the gift wrap, including the receiver, the giver, and the relationship between them. Lollipops, atoms, molecules, diamonds, birds pooping, an ant from the ant farm, a banana… all of it comes out from that heart.

It’s the same with the inside. There is a just a simple message: ‘Happy Days.’ Because the books are a way of celebrating the things that make someone unique and amazing, getting (or giving) one of the books should make you smile.

You mentioned the pooping bird. Do you ever worry at all that people won’t see the funny side of that in the design?

M: Haha! No, I never worry too much. I wouldn’t put in anything that I thought people wouldn’t see the funny side of anyway. But I take all of my inspiration from the pages of the book. So the tone, the humour, the character: it all comes from there.

I really love the colours in the design. Can you tell me about a little about what made you choose them?

M: The colours are youthful, childlike. Hopefully, they’re fun too.

The colours are warm pastels and weren’t intentionally for children, but I think they just express joy and celebration. Also, I’m about to become a dad for the first time, so I guess children are on my mind. Ha!

Were there any challenges to designing something that would be a 3D object and that would fold?

M: For sure. The design had to adapt to the 3D nature of gift wrap. There are elements that had to be placed carefully so that they wouldn’t look out of place or strange after the gift wrap box had been fully assembled.

The design concentrates all of the main images on the top of box so that it is the first thing people see. But then when people open it they can see the entire thing in all its glory.